


please, if you must haunt me, let the air in first

by confidantes



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 01:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confidantes/pseuds/confidantes
Summary: Enforcers don't get funerals.(Ginoza, after Kougami.)Spoilers for the end of season 1.





	please, if you must haunt me, let the air in first

**Author's Note:**

> posting a bunch of old fic from 2014 i dug up, don't mind me

Enforcers don’t get funerals, just as they aren’t allowed to get married, but Tsunemori makes several pleas to the Ministry of Welfare and secures Masaoka a small, quiet reception at a Kanagawa prefecture gravesite. Ginoza wonders how she did it, how the higher-ups had made such an allowance when all his superiors had constrained him with such impossible choices. He at once marvels at her ability and feels bitter about his own experience. But he supposes now is not the time, not when they are watching the coffin being lowered into the muddy earth. It is raining. Masaoka used to complain how the joint between his prosthetic arm and his socket used to ache on rainy days, and Ginoza used to dismiss it as an old man’s ramblings. Now, he’s wishing he had heeded more attention. He briefly rubs his left shoulder, at the juncture between metal and flesh, and Tsunemori, standing next to him, notices.

“Does it hurt, Ginoza-san?” she asks softly.

“Somewhat. But it’s nothing to write home about.” He glances at her through the parts in his hair. “And you don’t have to call me ’-san.’ I’m your subordinate now.”

She blinks at him several times, as if she hadn’t understood what he’d said. “We are still equals, Ginoza-san,” she says simply.

He gives a small chuckle and turns his attention back to the coffin. By now, it’s been submerged completely, and the workers are busy shoveling dirt over it.  _All men are equal in death,_ he remembers reading somewhere. “You are still naive,” he murmurs.

She smiles at him. “I’m merely being honest.”

 

-

 

In the aftermath of war, there is always unsteadiness. Ginoza tries picking back up the pieces – he goes to therapy for a month, tries to handle his stress, keep his Hue clear – but part of him isn’t so foolish as to think that he can fix what has always been broken. His Psycho-pass, actually, only gets worse.

Tsunemori comes to see him the third week in, and he almost refuses her. The situation is eerily familiar, a conversation separated by a wall of glass, except this time, he is on the opposite side. “Are you here to convince me to come back as an Enforcer?” He folds his arms. “Surely you’re not so naive.”

“I came to see how you were doing, Ginoza-san.” Something in her voice indicates worry, and he feels guilty for thinking she had ulterior motives. He turns away.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. I had been thinking of the possibility myself.” He remembers the first day Kogami had rejoined as an Enforcer, how Ginoza had refused to acknowledge his existence for at least a month. Had called him solely “Enforcer” for a year. And even when he had gotten into the habit of calling him Kogami, his tongue had forgotten its way around the nickname “Kou.”

He has many regrets in his life, but this one –

He clenches his fists. “Inspector Tsunemori.”

“What is it, Ginoza-san?”

“What was your reason for becoming a detective?”

She smiles faintly, as though it were a question she had thought about before. “Because I thought it was something I was meant to do. I wasn’t sure of it at first, but more and more, I’ve come to believe that my purpose in life is to protect the people of this country.”

He laughs. “Sometimes, you sound like my old man.”

She smiles again, and bows her head. “Ginoza-san, I hope you come back soon.”

When she leaves, the first thing he does is flush all of his pills down the toilet. That night, he sleeps like he hasn’t in years.

 

-

 

They haven’t been able to find Kogami yet, and judging by the man’s talents, Ginoza suspects they never well. But in his dreams, he always manages to find him again. It isn’t hard. They had both started from such a simple place. One spin of a clock hand and they are twenty years old again, starting their jobs as Inspectors with such bright-eyed vivacity.

In this dream, they both know what will eventually happen to them. But they play the parts that are assigned, no deviation, no variation, like marionettes in a puppet play. Boy saves boy. Boy falls in love with boy. Boy goes crazy. Boy wishes he had been able to save the world, but couldn’t. They intertwine fingers and fates, twisting and turning between sheets and a secret kept on both their lips, but it always ends the same way. Kogami will always leave him, and Ginoza will always wonder if they were meant to be strangers passing on a speeding track.

He does not cry. He does not rage. Instead, he is at peace. He is practiced in the art of letting go. 

 

-

 

The next morning when Ginoza wakes up, he submits his request to be an Enforcer at the MWPSB, and never looks back.


End file.
